Five jailed for Leeds revenge attack that ended in murder

FIVE men have been jailed for their part in a plot to injure a father in a revenge attack which ended instead with one of his friends being murdered.

Mr Justice Edis said at Leeds Crown Court today they were not being sentenced for the killing of Sidney Cox, 57, who was beaten and stabbed after the intended victim Benjamin Reynolds fled from Middleton Lane, Thorpe.

But the judge said each had played a part in a serious offence on August 24 last year when “extreme violence” was planned against Mr Reynolds at his home following an earlier incident at a fair. “What you were part of was taking the law into your own hands.”

The plot culminated in an “armed band” travelling in a convoy led by a stolen truck which smashed into Mr Reynolds’s home. He managed to escape “by the skin of his teeth” driving off, but Mr Cox was then attacked by unidentified masked men.

All five admitted conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Reynolds. Robert Gaskin, 37 of Stocksbridge Lane, Doncaster, was jailed for eight years.

His son Larry, 19 of Cleveland Road, Doncaster was sent to a young offender institution for six years eight months.

Hannibal Riley, 35 of Barnby Dun Road, Doncaster who helped steal the recovery truck but did not join the convoy was jailed for six years six months; Reynolds Tunney, 63 of Mill Lane, Brigg, who drove a van in the convoy and Patrick Stewart, 42 of Doncaster Road, Wakefield who tried to follow the fleeing Mr Reynolds were both jailed for seven years.

Following a trial earlier this year two other men were jailed for the same offence and brothers Ambrose and Michael Dear were each jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years for the murder of Mr Cox.